Diane de Poitiers

Diane de Poitiers (3 September 1499-25 April 1566) was a French noblewoman who was the chief mistress of Henry II of France.

Biography
Diane de Poitiers was born in Saint-Vallier, France on 3 September 1499, and she received a full Renaissance education, including learning Latin and Greek and learning how to hunt and play sports. Following the death of her husband in 1531, she wore black and white mourning clothes for the rest of her life, and she assumed her husband's title of Seneschal of Normandy. In 1534, the 35-year-old Diane and the 15-year-old Prince Henry became lovers, and she became the most powerful woman at court, even after Henry married Catherine de Medici. Until 1551, she was in charge of the education of Henry's children; Diane herself gave birth to one of Henry's children, the illegitimate Sebastian de Poitiers. After Henry was mortally wounded in a jousting tournament in 1559, Catherine de Medici deprived Diane of all of her power, and she lived out the rest of her days in her chateau at Anet in Eure-et-Loir, where she died in a riding accident in 1566.